Mitt Romney will, of course, have to reveal his tax returns eventually.

The only question is how bad he can make his situation before he finally does.

From the evidence so far, pretty bad.

View full sizeAssociated PressMitt Romney is happy not to reveal his tax returns. He's wrong.

Already, it's gotten to the point where even Republicans are speculating on what might be in the multimillion-dollar, possibly multi-volume 1040s that Romney doesn't want known. On Sunday television, George Will postulated (you can't say George Will just "said" something), "The costs of not releasing the returns are clear. Therefore, he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them." William Kristol says not releasing six or eight years of tax returns is "crazy."

And those are the folks on Romney's side. Democrats are free to speculate on anything: That Romney listed Swiss banks as dependents. That he deducted the $40 million he spent on his 2008 presidential campaign as a business expense. That he managed to classify all of his homes as tax shelters.

Romney, still deep into his don't-challenge-the-CEO-on-money mode, insists he won't have to release anything else. He's wrong.

Henry Kissinger, who between Watergate and Cambodia learned something about disaster management, concluded, "Anything that will be revealed eventually should be revealed immediately."